matchlock-men; but even these were not forthcoming. His plea of poverty was transparently false, as false indeed as were his professions of loyalty to the British rule, at the time when he was corresponding with our enemies and raising troops secretly on his own account. Chait Singh had repeatedly put off the payment of his regular tribute; his body-guard alone was larger than the force which Hastings required of him; and the British Resident at his court complained of his rudeness and reported his secret plottings with the Oudh princesses at Faizábád. Markham, who replaced Fowke as Besident in 1781, had been charged by Hastings to treat the Rájá with all mildness and forbearant courtesy. But no entreaties could bring Chait Singh to 'make a show of obedience by mustering even five hundred horse.' Hastings lowered his demand to one thousand. But the Rájá still sent evasive answers, and never furnished a single horseman[1].
It was afterwards averred by Hastings' enemies that his policy towards Chait Singh was inspired by malice and a thirst for revenge on the man who, in 1777, had sent a messenger to congratulate Clavering on his reported accession to the post of Governor-General. But the final verdict of the Peers on this very point was far truer to the facts and likelihoods of the whole case. Francis openly gloried in repaying old grudges with ample interest. Iago himself could not have outdone him in this line. Nobody, on the
- ↑ Gleig, Auber, Debates of the House of Lords.
